Do you want Refueling back?

[Icehole]

My point in the previous post above is that refueling could be bought back with Zero danger to anyone.

[Pingguest]

But refuelling adds nothing to the series, except an incentive of not trying to pass on-track.

[SectorOne]

It allows F1 cars to be driven properly instead of overweight dogs for 25-50% of the race.

[Pingguest]

It allows F1 cars to be driven properly instead of overweight dogs for 25-50% of the race.

I fail to see why refuelling is necessary to make the cars drive propely by objective standards. Under normal circumstances a refuelling ban would be a great incentive to reduce fuel consumption.

[Jonnycraig]

It allows F1 cars to be driven properly instead of overweight dogs for 25-50% of the race.

What do you consider 'proper' driving of an F1 car?

[SectorOne]

I doubt you would see much of an improvement in fuel usage just by loading all of it in the car from the start.
I fail to see why F1 should care about reducing it´s fuel consumption on track when one of their airplanes on a two way trip uses more then the whole F1 circus over a full year including testing.

What do you consider 'proper' driving of an F1 car?

Fumes to half a tank of fuel in general.
Running around with 150kg´s of fuel is like watching a sumo wrestler doing ballet.

[Jonnycraig]

What do you consider 'proper' driving of an F1 car?

Fumes to half a tank of fuel in general.
Running around with 150kg´s of fuel is like watching a sumo wrestler doing ballet.

Which would lead to one stop races and nursing the tyres even more.

To the average viewer the cars don't handle any differently at the end of races as to the start and without the helpful timing, I'd happily wager that most viewers would have no idea of the difference in lap times.

Ironically, the 07 US Grand Prix was on Sky last night and both McLarens were told to 'bring the cars home' over a second off their earlier pace with more than 20 laps still to go.

[bhall]

But refuelling adds nothing to the series, except an incentive of not trying to pass on-track.

In a series that's spending hundreds of millions on engines for the sake of efficiency, it makes no sense to carry the last lap of fuel from the first lap of the race.

[Richard]

It cuts both ways, having to carry all your fuel means you can't take it for granted. If a team carries too much fuel they'll be overtaken by another with a superior strategy.

If we have refuelling the idea is that cars will driver foot to floor for the whole race, except they won't. They'll plan a fuel strategy to ensure the shortest time from start to finish. That also includes fuel saving (to reduce the number of stops). Also the stops will be influenced by the need to change tyres.

Both scenarios end up with strategy dictating that cars run to a race plan as opposed to driving as fast as possible at all times. Admittedly the refuelling cars will go faster, but that doesn't mean more overtaking because teams will converge on near identical strategies.

So lets go back to the last era of refuelling, they also had everlasting Bridgestone tyres. Teams could fuel light or heavy at the start. So one would think races were much more exciting. However what happened was just the same as now. All cars fuelled to near enough the same level, ran at a similar pace, and stopped to refuel at near enough the same time. Overtaking took place in the pits, it was a game of cat and mouse when the car that stopped first lost. That means fuel saving became important.

Actually I preferred refuelling because it made races much more strategic, and just occasionally teams would refuel differently and run a different number of stops (maybe a third). That made the race fascinating although the drivers racing for position could be up to 30 seconds apart. Sometimes the tortoise (fuel saver) beat the hare (splash and dash) sometimes the other way around. The fuel saving car would often win even though it was "slower".

The irony is that the more exciting strategies with cars on different plans ends up with a lot less wheel to wheel action. So the complaint was that we didn't enough exciting wheel to wheel action.

[SectorOne]

Which would lead to one stop races and nursing the tyres even more.

That depends on the tire first and foremost. If you are forced to stop 3 times during a race you will most likely refill during those stops as well.

But with solid tires, one stop sounds fine. I never found F1 boring in those days, it was pure racing back then.
Or just enforce X amount of stops. Problem solved. Then we can see light cars throughout the race.

Ironically, the 07 US Grand Prix was on Sky last night and both McLarens were told to 'bring the cars home' over a second off their earlier pace with more than 20 laps still to go.

Why is that ironic? Hamilton was fuel saving this year in Malaysia from lap 20 or 25.
That´s hardly the reason why i want less fuel in the cars.

Running low on fuel will always happen regardless of if you put in all of it before the race or some during the race.
We are humans and we make mistakes.

[AnthonyG]

Since refueling has been banned, pitstop times have gone down and as a result mistakes have gone up.
I don't think the refueling ban made F1 safer.

[Richard]

But with solid tires, one stop sounds fine. I never found F1 boring in those days, it was pure racing back then.

I guess it depends on the many interpretation of "pure" racing. Personally I rate strategy and mechanical performance alongside diver skill.

Personally I recall everlasting tyres being processional after the first lap. Then we'd have a few frantic fast laps at the pitstop, then a procession to the end.

I think my optimum is a tyre/fuel combination that allows both 2 and 3 stop strategies to be competitive. That's when the team strategists have a more significant role, plus the driver on the 3 stop strategy is required to gain something like 20-30 seconds to make it work as well as overtake people on track. Meanwhile the slower driver is required to deliver metronomic laptimes to make the plan work, and to then deliver 4 or 5 super fast laptimes before the pitstop.

The result is that you never see rivals side by side. So people who prefer wheel to wheel combat are disappointed.

So to conclude I'd rather see refuelling, but for strategy reasons not pure speed.

[ESPImperium]

Id like refuelling back, as a limited 15Kg top up from a shoulder holster thats gravity fed. And refuelling to be a fuel only stop at the end of the race, only allowable from 10 laps out.if you want to go faster you can, but there will be a penalty and thats an extra 25sec in the pits at the end of the race.

[Lycoming]

Ironically refuelling is somewhat more fuel efficient since you burn less fuel to carry fuel with you. Of course, F1 cars don't carry their empty weight in fuel like long haul airliners, and if you refuel you're more likely to run higher engine modes, etc. but still.

Personally, I don't feel that it adds anything to the sport and for safety and cost reasons, may as well just stay banned.

I doubt you would see much of an improvement in fuel usage just by loading all of it in the car from the start.
I fail to see why F1 should care about reducing it´s fuel consumption on track when one of their airplanes on a two way trip uses more then the whole F1 circus over a full year including testing.

What do you consider 'proper' driving of an F1 car?

Fumes to half a tank of fuel in general.
Running around with 150kg´s of fuel is like watching a sumo wrestler doing ballet.

When they're on fumes they're not really driving "proper" since then you're in limp home mode; turn the engine down, lift and coast, short shift. I know what you mean by fumes... but that's what qualifying is for.

[Manoah2u]

no, refueling is nonsense. imho, it's rediculous that a car wouldn't be able to do 300km on a single fuel charge. I'm no environmentalist goof but I do find it a tad out of place to have cars needing to refuel after a couple of laps. Aside from
that, it's just dangerous to refuel - nothing's changed in the extreme pit 'haste', just look at the record-setting pitstops of redbull [and mclaren and ferrari trying to become pitstop number ones], look at the still many pit errors [from wheelnuts failing, wheels banging straight into cameramen and early releases almost having collisions]. It is enough potential to have fire accidents like before, raikkonen with a flaming fuel rig still attached, or could even go back to Jos Verstappen fires.
hell, just look at webbo's fire, imagine a fire with kers at the pitstop. had a fire at sauber recently.

No, refueling at this stage would just pose a unneccesary danger.